They passed on him in the first round. They passed on him in the second round. With a shot at both Lacy and Montee Ball, the Packers traded down.

Now, it's no hyperbole. If Aaron Rodgers misses games with the shoulder injury he suffered Monday night, this offense runs through the Alabama running back.

"I'm going to do what I have to do," said Lacy after Green Bay's 27-20 loss to Chicago, in which Rodgers was knocked out of the game in the first quarter. "If that's what it is, we're going to have to run the ball. It's not just me. It's us as a team, as a unit."

The contingency plan for the Packers requires no whiteboard. Feed Lacy. A player who suffered every possible ailment in college -- toe fusion surgery, a metal plate and seven screws in his hand, a bum elbow, hamstring and pectoral and ankle injuries -- becomes the backbone of Green Bay's offense.

Go figure. Lacy fell to the 61st-overall pick because teams were frightened by his injury history. And on this injury-cursed team, he's the 230-pound symbol of durability.

The last five games, Lacy has carried the ball 119 times. Expect more where that came from.

"I don't know what to expect right now," Lacy said, "but whatever it is you have to go out as a team and do it."

Rodgers makes everyone's life easier. He's no different than LeBron James on a football field -- Rodgers maximizes, accentuates the strengths of every player around him.

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Jordy Nelson's speed. James Jones' jump-ball ability. The undrafted, overlooked, Jarrett Boykin became a weapon. That's the Rodgers Effect. You see the same thing in Denver, in New England, in New Orleans.

Only a few quarterbacks truly make everyone else better. Now, Aaron Rodgers is sidelined with a fractured collarbone with no timetable set. This pick-your-poison lot of receivers aren't as dangerous. And, oh yeah, Randall Cobb (fibula) and Jermichael Finley (neck) are out.

So there's no choice but to turn to the husky Lacy. It takes more than two arms to corral his tree-trunk thighs and security-guard torso. The one, ever-so-slight silver lining for the Packers on Monday night was that it didn't matter how many Bears defenders crowded into the box.

Of Lacy's 150 rushing yards, 97 came after contact. He better get used to it. The running back now becomes the focal point.

Even he's not sure how it'll go.

"I guess we're all going to figure that out," Lacy said.

Inside the locker room, multiple offensive linemen said it's on their shoulders. They know it starts with the run.

"That's how we're going to keep rolling," center Evan Dietrich-Smith said, "go out there and cram it down peoples' throats."

Added left tackle David Bakhtiari, "Of course it's a big blow. It's Aaron Rodgers. But we said, 'Alright, it's even more weight on our shoulders as an offensive line.'"

Yes, a shift toward the run has been in effect since Week 1. The change internally won't be the full-scale metamorphosis outsiders will paint all week. For eight games, linemen have been moving forward instead of backward more than ever under Mike McCarthy. They sound eager or -- to use a McCarthy term -- "salty" about this apocalyptic challenge.

At the vortex of this all will be Lacy, the guy whose body went through hell and back at Alabama. He has handled the overload workload with soreness and a smile after each game. Since the Week 2 concussion, he's had no issues.

This time last year, we all wondered if the Packers could somehow, someway force defenses out of two-deep safety looks. Green Bay only wanted teams to passively respect its ground game. Now, it's on Lacy; it's on James Starks to carry the offense.

As Dietrich-Smith later added, this isn't anything new. Lacy has been doing it, "week in and week out." What is new is the quarterback. There's no reason to respect the passing game -- a strange, twisted, foreign scenario in northeast Wisconsin.

Lacy, the back who has never seen snow in person, the back who left Radio City Music Hall in New York after all teams passed on him, is the unquestioned featured player in this offense. The key to a contender breathing for multiple weeks.

Crowded by reporters at his locker afterward, Lacy was asked the question on everyone's mind.

Can the Green Bay Packers win without Aaron Rodgers?

"As a team, yeah," Lacy said. "You have to step up. Guys have to step up."